How everything we know has changed…

A half-century has passed since the groundbreaking creation of Head Start. In May the National Journal published an excellent, brief and readable summary of the history of research in early childhood education and child development over this crucial 50-year period. As noted by the authors, Janell Ross and Amy Sullivan, “When President Johnson signed the bill authorizing Head Start back in 1965, he had some research to back up the idea of early childhood interventions—and a lot of hunches. Nearly half a century later, researchers have the benefit of long-term studies to give them more answers, although that hasn’t ended debates on the subject.”

Among other things, the article identifies two paths of research to which many aspects of our systems seem stubbornly resistant, and relate directly to the core of developmentally appropriate practice from birth through age 8 in particular. First, “assessments [need] to include noncognitive outcomes—the ability to self-motivate, exhibit self-control, and work toward long-term goals.” (The current term for these skills, among others, is “Executive Function” ). Second, “children are only part of the equation…. the field of early childhood intervention evolved from its original focus on children to a growing appreciation of the extent to which family, community, and broader societal factors affect child health and development.” (Citing the influential National Academy of Sciences report From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development1, the findings of which served as the foundation of the work of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.)

This article cites and links to important basics of the learning underlying modern best practices and a research-based, developmentally sound approach to education:

the work of Jack Shonkoff and Deborah A. Phillips on From Neurons to Neighborhoods;